TITLE ".721: A History of the 1954 Cleveland Indians"AUTHOR Gary WebsterPUBLISHER McFarlandPRICE $29.95 (204 pages, softcover)ISBN 978-0-7864-7655-8DETAILS Order books through bookstores, online booksellers and from the publisher (www.mcfarlandpub.com or 800-253-2187)

Such is the basic thought to keep in mind when you read Gary Webster's new book, ".721: A History of the 1954 Cleveland Indians."

The 1954 Indians were a team that Tribe fans throughout Northeast Ohio, including thousands in Stark County, watched in wonderment for almost all of a season. At the end of that season, fans viewed the Indians in shock — and those final days were the base upon which the team's legacy was built.

"Clevelanders should look back with pride on the accomplishments of their 1954 Indians, whose 111 victories remains the franchise record and was the American League record for 44 years, until the Yankees eclipsed it with 114 wins in 1998," writes Webster in the preface to his book. "The 1954 Tribe's .721 winning percentage is still the league's all-time best."

The team's achievements, however, were overshadowed by its ultimate failure, the author notes.

"The Indians rode the right arms of Bob Lemon, Early Wynn and Mike Garcia, still one of the best starting pitching staffs ever assembled, and boasted of the American League batting champion in second baseman Bob Avila," adds the author. "What Cleveland remembers, however, is how these seemingly invincible Indians were humiliated in the World Series by the New York Giants, failing to win even a single game. The Tribe wouldn't win another pennant for 41 years."

With that historical footnote in mind, we return with Webster to where it all began.

THE SEASON

The season had an inauspicious start. Cleveland was only 4-6 after 10 games.

But, the Indians went on a 12 game winning streak in May and won 10 games in a row in June. Then the Tribe had a streak in July during which the team won 14 games and lost only three. At the end of August, Cleveland stood atop the American League Standings with a record of 95-36. The Indians were 51⁄2 games ahead of their competition.

The Indians won 11 games in a row during a stretch drive in September, a month in which the team clinched the pennant eight games before the end of the season.

So, what happened to topple the Tribe from the height of the team's achievement? A variety of answers are examined by an author who knows the history of his Cleveland baseball team. Webster is a Kent State University graduate who has written two other books about the Indians.

"In his declining years, Tribe Hall of Famer Bob Feller, who won 13 games as a spot starter in 1954, insisted that the 1948 World Series champion Indians were a much better team and the collapse against the Giants shouldn't have been as startling as it was," writes Webster. "Other players suggested that manager Al Lopez was obsessed with breaking the 1927 Yankees' record and drove the team too hard to achieve that goal, leaving them exhausted at season's end."

Page 2 of 3 - Another hypothesis — familiar to fans who still are hurting because of Cleveland's failures in football after "The Drive" and in basketball after "The Shot" — blames what Webster calls the Indians' "World Series swoon" on psychological damage done by "The Catch."

GREAT GRAB

The picture of Willie May's defensive highlight is a familiar one to baseball fans who are even mildly interested in the history of the game. To Indians fans, the frequently reprinted photograph continues to illustrate a haunting play.

"The first game of the World Series produced one of baseball's enduring images: that of Mays, the number 24 on the back of his uniform turned to home plate, reaching out to catch a 450-foot cannon shot off the bat of Vic Wertz as he raced toward the center field wall in the Polo Grounds in the eighth inning," recalls Webster. "Had Mays not caught the ball, which would have been a home run far beyond the center field fence in Municipal Stadium (in Cleveland), two runners would have scored, Wertz would have motored all the way around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, the Indians would have broken a 2-2 tie and, in all likelihood, won the all-important opener for Bob Lemon."

Instead, the Giants won an extra-inning game 5-2 on a home run in the 10th inning. Cleveland never recovered.

THE SERIES

The World Series, writes Webster, "was as good as over."

The Giants won the second game in New York by a score of 3-1. Webster notes in his book that a still-confident Cleveland pitcher Early Wynn did no whining about the loss.

"We just got beat, that's all," Wynn wrote in a World Series column he was contracted to write for the Cleveland News. "I think it will be different now that we are going home to our own backyard. I, for one, think it will be a different story the next three days." But, the series lasted only two more days, a 6-2 Indians loss in the third game and a 7-4 Giants win in the final contest. The Tribe couldn't extend the series to the third home game.

"The Giants played the coldest ball club I've seen in a long time," wrote Wynn in his last column — a column published a few days earlier than expected. "We were ice cold."

Statistics support Wynn's words. In the World Series, Wertz batted 8-16 — a .500 average — but of players who had more than a handful of at-bats, only Al Rosen (.250) and Al Smith (.214) had averages above .200.

The Indians were a failure by all measures of championships, Webster said in his book. Still, he argued, their incredible season in 1954 was more of an achievement "than a mere afterthought."